


Please Stay

by EarthsickWithoutYou



Category: Doctor Who, Whouffaldi - Fandom
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 20:11:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12092541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthsickWithoutYou/pseuds/EarthsickWithoutYou
Summary: If Clara asked him to stay, instead of running away from her for another couple of weeks and turning up randomly with a bagful of surprise adventures, what would the Doctor reply?





	Please Stay

*This is it,* Clara steeled herself, already blushing though the words she’d been contemplating and holding back for so long had yet to fall from her lips. 

“A bit overzealous, those Zeforian masseuses, wouldn’t you say?” the Doctor asked distractedly, rubbing his back and wincing as the TARDIS came spinning to a stop. 

“So are the baristas,” Clara added, trying to allow the truthful humor of their latest trip to reduce some of the tension building up in her mind and heart. Nah, it wasn’t working. She watched carefully as the Doctor examined the TARDIS computer, making a few adjustments to the console, his face innocent of the preoccupation that had tried her patience to its breaking point. There was something she needed to know.

If Clara asked him to stay, instead of running away from her for another couple of weeks and turning up randomly with a bagful of surprise adventures, what would the Doctor reply? She didn’t want him to go. It was that simple, but putting it into words was so hard. They had both maintained the meticulous appearance of being Just Friends, doing such a fantastic job of it that by now, Clara couldn’t tell if he was pretending or if that was how he really felt, what he really wanted. She wanted so much more and wondered if it could ever be possible.

“I’ll see you,” the Doctor said, not meeting her eyes. Clara looked at him and felt as if her heart was breaking. Was that meant to be her cue to leave?

Her mouth had actually been open to ask him to come in, have dinner, whatever, anything. Just not to leave her. Now, she shut it again, insulted and injured by his uncaring attitude.

“Right, so I’ll see you when I see you, then,” Clara replied briskly, her tone artificially bright to the point where, to her own hearing, she almost sounded like she’d just taken a quick hit of helium.

“Take care,” the Doctor said absently, and Clara went sweeping past him, marching straight out of the TARDIS and into the front door of her flat, pride fueling her to get the hell away from him before she lost it.

Not noticing that the front door hadn’t clicked all the way shut, Clara thanked the stars above that she was alone and then did something so childish that it was infinitely satisfying.

“Urrgghh!” She scowled, stomping her foot and balling her fists. “Take care?” She slammed her traveling bag down and then kicked off her black, chunky-heeled boots before picking them up and throwing them as hard as she could. They crashed into the couch harmlessly before bouncing to the floor. Feeling her slight relief at this outburst slip back into misery, Clara went into her bedroom, pulling the covers up over her head so that she could have a good cry in the proper setting.

Well, why did she go storming away from him like that? The Doctor wondered, confused. He couldn’t figure her out at all lately, and it bothered him.

Hiding his love for Clara was hard work, and it was getting harder all the time. The lump in his throat at having to say goodbye to her today, the burning desire he had to draw her into his arms and kiss her with everything he had, these were things that had to be concealed. The act was so painful that he couldn’t even look at her, and then the next thing the Doctor knew, Clara had hurtled out of the TARDIS, steam practically pouring from her ears. What had he done wrong? 

Giving up on finding any answers at present, he was almost ready to slip into his particularly sad little ritual of imagining that Clara was still there, thinking what she’d say and how the light in her big brown eyes would make his hearts skip a beat. Then the Doctor noticed a phone sitting there on the console. Ah, she’d forgotten it. He snatched it up and made a beeline for Clara’s apartment. 

At least they could leave off on a better note, the Doctor thought optimistically, now that he had this flimsy excuse to go to her.

Her door was slightly ajar, but he knocked loudly anyway. “Clara?” he called, stepping inside. She hadn’t bothered to put the lights on, and night had long since fallen. He squinted, looking for the lamp, then tripped and landed face-first on the couch. The Doctor looked down and saw those infuriatingly sexy little black boots of Clara’s. Even her shoes tripped him up, he acknowledged to himself with a sigh. He arranged them neatly beneath the small table next to the couch and turned the lamp on. Clara was nowhere in sight and hadn’t answered his call. 

“Clara?” the Doctor repeated, beginning to worry. What if there was an intruder, and that was why the door had been left open like that? He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and frowned. He would pulverize anyone who tried to hurt her. It wasn’t like him, for that to be his first instinct…but there was no time to debate within himself yet again about his absurd overflowing of passion for this woman.

She wasn’t in the kitchen, so he continued onto the bedroom, knocking again. “Clara?”

A muffled, weepy voice replied, “Go away!” Something soft hit the door, as if she’d thrown it in the direction of his voice. A pillow? Yes, and it had wedged itself against the door. The Doctor nudged it aside with one foot and tentatively peeked around the corner. He could make out the outline of Clara’s body curled up under the covers of her bed.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, his increasingly unconvincing, cool facade evaporating.

“What are you doing here?” Clara asked, not bothering to emerge. She sniffed loudly, then shot one arm out to grab a handful of tissues from the container beside the bed, pulling them underneath with her before yanking the covers even closer around her.

“You left your phone. The door was open,” the Doctor explained, though that seemed so unimportant now, like a distant memory. “What’s the matter?”

“I told you to go away,” she reminded him tensely.

“I ignored you,” he replied smoothly, “but I will go now if you really mean it. I wish you would…”

“What?” Clara snapped, and he flinched at the bitterness in her tone. What could have ever gotten her so upset when they’d been laughing together in the TARDIS just a little while ago? *Had* they been laughing, though? Or just exchanging awkward, stiff niceties and flat jokes?

“What,” Clara asked, peeling down the covers just enough for her face to poke out, “What do you wish?”

Her eyes were red and her cheeks still slightly damp, her hair looking as if she’d styled it with a kitchen whisk. The Doctor had never seen anyone so beautiful.

“That you’d let me help you,” he managed, leaning against the doorway uncertainly. He’d really meant, *I wish that you’d let me stay,* but those words sounded far too forward.

Clara disappeared again beneath the sheets and blankets, and it was so adorable that he couldn’t help a smile. “You don’t have to go,” she resumed.

His hearts leaped with hope and he came closer, sitting gingerly on the bed. 

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Clara asked, annoyed.

“Hmm?” the Doctor wondered, momentarily perplexed. “Oh,” he added as her meaning struck him. He lifted the covers and slid underneath, so that they lay facing each other, sudden intimacy thick in the air between them. Air which, the Doctor realized, was rather minimal. “How can you breathe under here?” He asked, “You’ve got enough covers for a vacation at the South Pole.”

Clara quickly sat up, turned down the top two blankets, and dove back under the sheets. “Better,” she acknowledged.

“Well, this is interesting,” he said in an attempt at pretending this was all normal. Just two friends in bed together, one sad, the other offering comfort, totally above board and in no way romantic.

“Shut up,” she repeated, rolling her watery eyes at his ill-timed small talk, “And ask me again.”

The Doctor took a deep breath and let it go slowly. She was asking him to drop his bloody pretenses, and the invitation was too tempting to refuse.

“What’s wrong?” the Doctor asked softly, imploringly. 

In the gentle glow shed by the lamp on her bedside table, the Doctor’s eyes were blue-grey, a gorgeous ocean swirl that tugged at Clara’s heartstrings. Her fingers itched to touch his face, run along his cheekbones and then through his soft, infinitely ruffle-able silver hair. Her body ached to press against him and her lips felt the fire of a million kisses they would never get to give. Another tear fell, but this time he caught it, stroking it aside with his thumb before withdrawing his touch.

“That’s what’s wrong, you touching me and then stopping yourself from getting any closer,” Clara explained, staring into his bewildered gaze and watching the truth dawn on him until he had gone fully from cluelessness to astonishment. 

There was nothing left to do now, except to just tell him the truth. “I wanted to ask you for just this, earlier, when we said goodbye. I was going to ask you to stay because I hate watching you go so much that I don’t think I can stand it anymore. I can’t,” Clara confessed, biting her lip, “I can’t stand it, Doctor. But I also have my pride. Plus if friendship is all that you want from me, I accept it, and I’m grateful for it. I wanted to ask you to stay so that I could know, finally, one hundred percent, how you feel. Then maybe I can at least move on from this stupid deluded hoping. That’s so much healthier than always wondering, right? But before I could ask you, you sent me packing like I was some casual acquaintance of yours, just another companion out of so many, someone you’ll forget about as soon as she’s out of sight.”

“Never,” the Doctor said immediately, his brow furrowing as he tried to understand what she meant. How she could ever get the impression that he was being dismissive of her when all he was trying to do was be respectful of her boundaries? But who had established those boundaries in the first place? Both of them, neither of them? As they dared to continue looking into each others’ eyes, reciprocal desire flickered across his face and Clara felt a wave of arousal that more than dried her tears. “Why did you want me to stay, Clara?”

She leaned across, closing the tiny space between them as she kissed his mouth, her lips warm and inviting. The Doctor’s hearts pounded as he wondered how this could possibly be happening outside of one of his most secret and dearly protected fantasies. “Clara,” he murmured, hearing his deep and powerful need of her in his own voice, his tone almost a growl. 

“Is this what you want?” She asked intently. 

“Of course it is,” he confessed, ecstatic that the sadness was completely gone from Clara’s face, watching as her mouth curved in a surprised smile.

“How much do you want it?” Clara asked boldly, and he had pulled her into another kiss within the next breath. 

“As much as I never want to see you cry, as much as I never again want to be the cause of it,” the Doctor promised. “I’m so sorry that I ever made you doubt—”

“It’s okay,” Clara soothed, “I could have been honest about my feelings a lot sooner, too. Just…” She kissed him again, “Show me now, how you feel, Doctor.”

He returned her kisses, a sweet electricity running through him as she opened her mouth and their tongues met. He was falling deeper and deeper into her, consumed by their passion. Clara moaned, feeling his hardness against her, and then brought her hips up so that her center grazed his erection. The Doctor ran his fingers from the top of Clara’s back, exposed by the low back of her dress, down to her bottom and grasped her there, prompting her to slide her body onto his. Then they continued their mad frenzy of kissing, their hands wandering everywhere, their movements somehow entirely symphonic. 

“I love you, Clara,” the Doctor said desperately, all the words he’d idiotically stifled tumbling from him out of the instinct that she must know, she must never doubt him again. He kissed her ear, her neck, her shoulder, “When we’re apart, I feel so alone.” No words had ever been truer, or could ever have laid him so completely bare to her.

“Me, too,” Clara whispered, her eyes closed as he kissed her chest above the neckline of her dress, the dark blue one with white flowers which she’d chosen hoping it would catch his notice. The same dress he’d thought about removing in several different scenarios since he saw it on her. She reached up and unbuttoned his ever-crisp white shirt, seeing the nervousness in his eyes when more of his body was revealed. Clara marveled at the Doctor’s shyness: did he really have no idea how much he turned her on? Well, he was about to find out.

“Clara, nothing will ever be the same after this,” he cautioned her, his voice tight with desire, his mind urging common sense faintly, from somewhere very far away.

“Good,” she answered blissfully, “Because I love you, and I don’t want it to be like it was. I want all of you.”

“Then I am yours,” he answered huskily, slipping the dress over her head, watching the way her hair fell around her face in a haze. He smoothed it back with his long fingers before kissing her hungrily, shivering under the feeling of her fingers on his skin, wandering downward to his belt.

Clara took off her bra and the Doctor cupped her breasts, fingers running over her nipples, his every movement revealing a skill wrought from inextricably mingled tenderness and deep-seated desire that made her breathing speed up, her heart racing. They sat up, Clara straddling the Doctor as their mouths collided once more, their bodies finally grinding together in a shameless surrender that made Clara happily dizzy. She pressed her lips to his neck and trailed them down his chest and stomach, unbuttoning his pants and releasing his arousal as the Doctor gasped, vulnerable under her exploration, the sensation of her hand around him, then her mouth.

“Clara,” he said softly, hand tangled in her hair. Her name was the only song that had resounded in his hearts since the day they had met, only her name, sweetly painful, excruciatingly divine. Then the Doctor longed to pleasure Clara too much to be patient about it, and gently took her by the arms until she understood and turned onto her back. The Doctor smiled against her pink lace panties, still wrapped in the surreal disbelief of well-hidden dreams he’d never expected to become reality. Clara sighed, then moaned sharply as he pulled down the thin material of her underwear, then kissed and licked her, his hand moving up to caress her breasts.

The taste of her, and her reaction to what he was doing, unraveled the Doctor until he returned his mouth to hers, her legs wrapped around him as he entered her slowly. “Doctor,” Clara managed to say as the new feeling of fullness within her brought continual shocks of pleasure with every move he made. Out of every time she’d pictured what this would be like, she had never fathomed the intensity of it, the power of this satiation. The Doctor thrust into her with a wonderfully torturous, gradual rhythm, long strokes until he was deep inside Clara, her fingers clutching his back as they kissed over and over. When he began to move more quickly, she knew that even in his dedication to prolong her enjoyment of this as long as possible, he was reaching the limit of his own power to hold back. The sight of his complete inability to resist taking her, hard and fast, turned her on more than anything ever had. Clara cried out as she came just before he did, both of them clinging together, as close physically as they had always been in their minds, hearts, and souls.

She rested against his chest, the Doctor’s arms snug around her, their bare skin hot, bodies still slightly trembling. “What took us so long?” Clara wondered aloud, honestly unable to imagine why they had tried so hard to hide their emotions and what they both wanted. That repression felt like a nightmare from which she had finally awakened.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said with a chuckle, “It does seem hard to remember the reasons now, doesn’t it? I was afraid, Clara. I’ve never had feelings like this before. I never wanted anyone so badly while fearing so deeply that they didn’t feel the same.”

“Me neither,” she admitted, and he tilted his head to one side.

“Come now, Clara, I was never all that good at pretending I wasn’t in love with you. I think I was actually quite dreadful at it!”

“You had me fooled a few times,” she replied, and he frowned.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Clara insisted, running her thumb over his lips before kissing them. “Just love me.”

The Doctor smiled again as he vowed, “Always.”


End file.
